Dear dimwit on the phone

I got spoiled in the CCS where they go by leagues and not actual divisions all the way through. The Southern Section I remember had divisions until Masters. CCS is comparatively smaller so I guess they forgo the masters step. Of course it's just a meat grinder to see who will lose to Gilroy in the CCS finals.

 

Ohio has three divisions in individual wrestling. State meet begins Thursday afternoon and runs through Saturday night.
I'm not familiar with how popular it is in California, but it is a big deal in Ohio.
Top four at sectional in each weight class advance to district, then top four there move on to state. State starts with 16 wrestlers at each weight per division, and gets whittled down from there.
State meet moves along at a pretty good pace, with mats filling the floor at Ohio State University's Schottenstein Center.

 

State wrestling is probably only topped by football and basketball in California.

Depending on which section you're in, there are league finals that send you to division or sectional championships. If you went to division finals the next step is section masters. From there the top 2, 3 or 5 advance to state depending on past performance of your section. I think 40 advance in each weight class. Then it's two days of state championships.

 

I think I've posted this here before, but Kentucky has one class for wrestling. The top four from each region, plus fifth place as an alternate, move on to state. It's a 32-man bracket at each weight, but it used to be 16. I miss those days.

 

"Why would you put anyone's name in there for committing an error anyway. To me that is terrible reporting!! The kid feels bad enough as it is!!"

Maybe because he committed an error?

 

Unless it's absolutely essential to the story, we typically don't ID kids who make errors or strike out in the final at-bat.

 

Single class wrestling and track were ideal, probably more for track than wrestling.

You don't worry about the 20th-best kid in the state winning a title. A ton of kids get cut out in the early going. You go into state knowing that if someone actually has a chance, that's a real big deal, great.

 

An email came through this morning with a graphic from a baseball team an hour and a half away from here about a 15-year-old pitcher that won a player of the game award. It was from his great uncle and it was talking about how the kid's grandparents and great grandmother lived here and played baseball here. I politely replied, thank you for the interest but we don't run features on non-local players.

The next email comes back and says "Ur kidding...He certainly has local ties..I have told everyone he's gonna be in the paper...It's not a profile...It's a huge sports accomplishment from the grandson of locals....They as I will be very disappointed if u don't put this in...These are. Subscribers and people who visit often...And the tie in with his great grandmother!!! ..." One note, we're a free paper that doesn't have subscribers.

Anyway, I just write back saying we don't even run pieces on local kids who win player of the game awards and we're not changing our policy. I tell the guy that he would be best to write to the kid's hometown newspaper (which I didn't tell him I very much doubt it would publish this either) and send copies to the family. I also say if he'd like the info in our paper, perhaps he should consider buying an ad and running what he wants.

The reply: "Ur an asshole...Ur telling me if I buy an ad u will print it?...Gfy!!!"

We get to work with such classy people.

 

Your mistake was engaging with the guy by replying twice.

 

Your mistake was engaging with the guy by replying.

 

Today, a woman called and I took it as the news department was busy and I felt like I could at least take a message and have one of the staff call her back (we no longer have a receptionist; whoever is the least busy has to answer the phone).

She ranted for about 20 minutes about these barricades near an on-ramp that everyone's been ignoring. She said she had called the city. I asked her if she had contacted the state DOT. She said no because her land line wasn't working.

So she couldn't call the DOT on her cell phone?

But the odd thing was that after the 20 minutes, she hung up politely. She didn't demand any action on out part. I kind of wonder if she forgot to demand we write something about it.

 

Applies to three-quarters of the posts here as well.